Friday, July 10, 2009

Russia and Atlanta to Go to War

"We assumed that the KHL and NHL would honor a gentleman's agreement" said Alexander Medvedev. "Therefore we didn't sign a single player having an NHL contract. We didn't even make any offers, even though agents for a whole host of world-class hockey players themselves came to the KHL clubs with the desire to enter into contract negotiations. But we didn't follow after them, because we were mindful of the general agreement."

Energy oligarch and KHL president Alexander Medvedev is furious. If this gets out of hand and Ilya Kovalchuk gets dragged into some public dispute where he's pressured to take sides with either the NHL team he captains or his country (whose national team he also captains), someone really needs to get punched in the nads.

UPDATE: Via Ben Wright, Don Waddell says, “After agreeing to terms on a contract with Joel Kwiatkowski, we learned that he had already committed to a team in the KHL. Therefore we have rescinded our offer and have been told that Joel will honor his agreement with St. Petersburg.”

5 comments:

aaron, great write-up on your blog capturing all of the salient points regarding this new Cold War. Perhaps we should call it the "Ice War"...anyway, my personal opinion is this: the IIHF be damned! What power do they really have? Especially if the NHL hasn't even joined? Do they wield any real power or authority over the IOC? Of course, the risk (of dragging Ilya Kovalchuk into this) is probably far great than what Kiwi is worth to us, but I think it's time Bettman stands up to Medvedev and the KHL and tell them to piss off. Our league is better and we were here first! Na na na-na na...yes, I'm all for diplomacy!

Mortimer, check out my questions for Evander on the first Kane media blitz blog! The Kane vs Postma thing could be an interesting angle and produce some fun smack talk. Who is tougher, a "Hitman" or a "Giant"?